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Odor Plaza

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Few things should feel as idyllically collegiate as a walk down Ho Plaza in the springtime. The skies are blue and the trees are in bloom. The only problem is that recently, the Plaza has been smelling like that time in summer camp when I brought a dead crab for show and tell and left it in my cubby for a month.

What is that malodorous aroma? An equally disturbed friend and I had a hunch that it came from those beautiful white, blooming trees. After all, that was the only thing that had changed recently on the Plaza.

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Marketing Cornell After the Suicides

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

Chances are that the prospective students and their parents perusing our campus during Cornell Days, which began last week and runs until next Monday, are well informed about the recent spate of suicides on campus. After all, last month’s front-page New York Times article and CNN’s much-played report titled “College Suicide Crisis?” made the news hard to miss.

Now, those in charge of hosting these prospective students (known at Cornell as “pre-frosh”) and their families are being given advice on how to talk about the very sensitive subject of year’s suicides and the prominent fencing that has been put on campus bridges as a response.

When asked about the fences, tour guides are told to emphasize that the fences are temporary and bring up the wonderful mental health resources provided by Gannett and the student-run counseling program, EARS. We also hear that tour guides got detailed information about each suicide before anything was communicated with the general Cornell community.

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